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<h1 align=center>Datatypes In SQLite Version 3</h1>

<p>Most SQL database engines (every SQL database engine other than SQLite,
as far as we know) uses static, rigid typing.  With static typing, the datatype
of a value is determined by its container - the particular column in
which the value is stored.</p>

<p>SQLite uses a more general dynamic type system.  In SQLite, the datatype
of a value is associated with the value itself, not with its container.
The dynamic type system of SQLite is backwards
compatible with the more common static type systems of other database engines
in the sense that SQL statement that work on statically typed databases should
work the same way in SQLite.  However, the dynamic typing in SQLite allows
it to do things which are not possible in traditional rigidly typed
databases.</p>

<a name="storageclasses"></a>

<h2>1.0 Storage Classes and Datatypes</h2>

<p>Each value stored in an SQLite database (or manipulated by the
database engine) has one of the following storage classes:</p>
<ul>
  <li><p><B>NULL</B>.
  The value is a NULL value.</p>

  <li><p><B>INTEGER</B>. The value is a signed integer, stored in 1,
  2, 3, 4, 6, or 8 bytes depending on the magnitude of the value.</p>

  <li><p><B>REAL</B>. The value is a floating point value, stored as
  an 8-byte IEEE floating point number.</p>

  <li><p><B>TEXT</B>. The value is a text string, stored using the
  database encoding (UTF-8, UTF-16BE or UTF-16LE).</p>

  <li><p><B>BLOB</B>. The value is a blob of data, stored exactly as
  it was input.</p>
</ul>

<p>Note that a storage class is slightly more general than a datatype.
The INTEGER storage class, for example, includes 6 different integer
datatypes of different lengths.  This makes a difference on disk.  But
as soon as INTEGER values are read off of disk and into memory for processing,
they are converted to the most general datatype (8-byte signed integer).
And so for the most part, "storage class" is indistinguishable from 
"datatype" and the two terms can be used interchangeably.</p>

<p>Any column in an SQLite version 3 database,
except an <a href="lang_createtable.html#rowid">INTEGER PRIMARY KEY</a> column, may be used to store a value 
of any storage class.</p>

<p>All values in SQL statements, whether they are literals embedded in SQL
statement text or <a href="lang_expr.html#varparam">parameters</a> bound to 
<a href="c3ref/stmt.html">precompiled SQL statements</a>
have an implicit storage class.
Under circumstances described below, the
database engine may convert values between numeric storage classes
(INTEGER and REAL) and TEXT during query execution. 
</p>

<a name="boolean"></a>

<h3>1.1 Boolean Datatype</h3>

<p>SQLite does not have a separate Boolean storage class.
Instead, Boolean values are stored as integers 0 (false) and 1 (true).</p>

<a name="datetime"></a>

<h3>1.2 Date and Time Datatype</h3>

<p>SQLite does not have a storage class set aside for storing
dates and/or times.
Instead, the built-in <a href="lang_datefunc.html">Date And Time Functions</a> of SQLite are capable of 
storing dates and times as TEXT, REAL, or INTEGER values:</p>

<ul>
<li><b>TEXT</b> as ISO8601 strings ("YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.SSS").
<li><b>REAL</b> as Julian day numbers, the number of days since
noon in Greenwich on November 24, 4714 B.C. according to the
proleptic Gregorian calendar.
<li><b>INTEGER</b> as Unix Time, the number of seconds since
1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC.
</ul>

<p>Applications can chose to store dates and times in any of these
formats and freely convert between formats using the built-in date
and time functions.</p>


<a name="affinity"></a>

<h2>2.0 Type Affinity</h2>

<p>
In order to maximize compatibility between SQLite and other database
engines, SQLite supports the concept of "type affinity" on columns.
The type affinity of a column is the recommended type for data stored
in that column.  The important idea here is that the type is recommended, not
required.  Any column can still store any type of data.
It is just that some columns, given the choice, will prefer to use
one storage class over another.  The preferred storage class for
a column is called its "affinity".
</p>

<p>Each column in an SQLite 3 database is assigned one of the
following type affinities:</p>
<ul>
	<li>TEXT</LI>
	<li>NUMERIC</LI>
	<li>INTEGER</LI>
        <li>REAL</li>
	<li>NONE</LI>
</ul>

<p>A column with TEXT affinity stores all data using storage classes
NULL, TEXT or BLOB. If numerical data is inserted into a column with
TEXT affinity it is converted into text form before being stored.</p>

<p>A column with NUMERIC affinity may contain values using all five
storage classes.  When text data is inserted into a NUMERIC column, the
storage class of the text is converted to INTEGER or REAL (in order of
preference) if such conversion is lossless and reversible.
For conversions between TEXT and REAL storage classes, SQLite considers
the conversion to be lossless and reversible if the first 15 significant
decimal digits of the number are preserved.
If the lossless conversion of TEXT to INTEGER or REAL is not possible then
the value is stored using the TEXT storage class. No
attempt is made to convert NULL or BLOB values.</p>

<p>A string might look like a floating-point literal with
a decimal point and/or exponent notation but as long as
the value can be expressed as an integer, the NUMERIC affinity will convert
it into an integer. Hence, the string '3.0e+5' is stored in a
column with NUMERIC affinity as the integer 300000, not as the floating
point value 300000.0.</p>

<p>A column that uses INTEGER affinity behaves the same as a column
with NUMERIC affinity.  The difference between INTEGER and NUMERIC affinity
is only evident in a <a href="lang_expr.html#castexpr">CAST expression</a>.</p>

<p>A column with REAL affinity behaves like a column with NUMERIC
affinity except that it forces integer values into floating point
representation.  (As an internal optimization, small floating point
values with no fractional component and stored in columns with REAL
affinity are written to disk as integers in order to take up less 
space and are automatically converted back into floating point as
the value is read out.
This optimization is completely invisible at the SQL level and can only
be detected by examining the raw bits of the database file.)</p>

<p>A column with affinity NONE does not prefer one storage class over
another and no attempt is made to coerce data from one storage class into
another.</p>

<a name="affname"></a>

<h3>2.1 Determination Of Column Affinity</h3>

<p>The affinity of a column is determined by the declared type
of the column, according to the following rules in the order shown:</p>

<ol>
  <li><p>If the declared type contains the string "INT" then it
  is assigned INTEGER affinity.</p>

  <li><p>If the declared type of the column contains any of the strings
  "CHAR", "CLOB", or "TEXT" then that
  column has TEXT affinity.  Notice that the type VARCHAR contains the
  string "CHAR" and is thus assigned TEXT affinity.</p>

  <li><p>If the declared type for a column
  contains the string "BLOB" or if
  no type is specified then the column has affinity NONE.</p>

  <li><p>If the declared type for a column
  contains any of the strings "REAL", "FLOA",
  or "DOUB" then the column has REAL affinity.</p>

  <li><p>Otherwise, the affinity is NUMERIC.</p>
</ol>

<p>Note that the order of the rules for determining column affinity
is important.  A column whose declared type is "CHARINT" will match
both rules 1 and 2 but the first rule takes precedence and so the 
column affinity will be INTEGER.</p>

<h3>2.2 Affinity Name Examples</h3>

<p>The following table shows how many common datatype names from
more traditional SQL implementations are converted into affinities by the five rules of the
previous section.  This table shows only a small subset of the
datatype names that SQLite will accept.  Note that numeric arguments
in parentheses that following the type name (ex: "VARCHAR(255)") are
ignored by SQLite - SQLite does not impose any length restrictions
(other than the large global <a href="limits.html#max_length">SQLITE_MAX_LENGTH</a> limit) on the length of
strings, BLOBs or numeric values.</p>

<blockquote> 
<table border="1" cellpadding="5">
<tr><th>Example Typenames From The<br>CREATE TABLE Statement<br>
        or CAST Expression
    <th>Resulting Affinity
    <th>Rule Used To Determine Affinity

<tr><td align="center" valign="top">
  INT<br>
  INTEGER<br>
  TINYINT<br>
  SMALLINT<br>
  MEDIUMINT<br>
  BIGINT<br>
  UNSIGNED BIG INT<br>
  INT2<br>
  INT8
<td align="center">INTEGER
<td align="center">1

<tr><td align="center" valign="top">
  CHARACTER(20)<br>
  VARCHAR(255)<br>
  VARYING CHARACTER(255)<br>
  NCHAR(55)<br>
  NATIVE CHARACTER(70)<br>
  NVARCHAR(100)<br>
  TEXT<br>
  CLOB
<td align="center">TEXT
<td align="center">2

<tr><td align="center" valign="top">
  BLOB<br>
  <i>no datatype specified</i>
<td align="center">NONE
<td align="center">3

<tr><td align="center" valign="top">
  REAL<br>
  DOUBLE<br>
  DOUBLE PRECISION<br>
  FLOAT
<td align="center">REAL
<td align="center">4

<tr><td align="center" valign="top">
  NUMERIC<br>
  DECIMAL(10,5)<br>
  BOOLEAN<br>
  DATE<br>
  DATETIME
<td align="center">NUMERIC
<td align="center">5
</table>
</blockquote>

<p>Note that a declared type of "FLOATING POINT" would give INTEGER
affinity, not REAL affinity, due to the "INT" at the end of "POINT".
And the declared type of "STRING" has an affinity of NUMERIC, not TEXT.

<h3>2.3 Column Affinity Behavior Example</h3>

<p>The following SQL demonstrates how SQLite uses column affinity
to do type conversions when values are inserted into a table.</p>

<blockquote>
<pre>
CREATE TABLE t1(
    t  TEXT,     -- text affinity by rule 2
    nu NUMERIC,  -- numeric affinity by rule 5
    i  INTEGER,  -- integer affinity by rule 1
    r  REAL,     -- real affinity by rule 4
    no BLOB      -- no affinity by rule 3
);

-- Values stored as TEXT, INTEGER, INTEGER, REAL, TEXT.
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES('500.0', '500.0', '500.0', '500.0', '500.0');
SELECT typeof(t), typeof(nu), typeof(i), typeof(r), typeof(no) FROM t1;
text|integer|integer|real|text

-- Values stored as TEXT, INTEGER, INTEGER, REAL, REAL.
DELETE FROM t1;
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES(500.0, 500.0, 500.0, 500.0, 500.0);
SELECT typeof(t), typeof(nu), typeof(i), typeof(r), typeof(no) FROM t1;
text|integer|integer|real|real

-- Values stored as TEXT, INTEGER, INTEGER, REAL, INTEGER.
DELETE FROM t1;
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES(500, 500, 500, 500, 500);
SELECT typeof(t), typeof(nu), typeof(i), typeof(r), typeof(no) FROM t1;
text|integer|integer|real|integer

-- BLOBs are always stored as BLOBs regardless of column affinity.
DELETE FROM t1;
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES(x'0500', x'0500', x'0500', x'0500', x'0500');
SELECT typeof(t), typeof(nu), typeof(i), typeof(r), typeof(no) FROM t1;
blob|blob|blob|blob|blob

-- NULLs are also unaffected by affinity
DELETE FROM t1;
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES(NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL);
SELECT typeof(t), typeof(nu), typeof(i), typeof(r), typeof(no) FROM t1;
null|null|null|null|null
</pre>
</blockquote>

<a name="comparisons"></a>

<h2>3.0 Comparison Expressions</h2>

<p>SQLite version 3 has the usual set of SQL comparison operators
including "=", "==", "&lt;", "&lt;=", "&gt;", "&gt;=", "!=", "<>",
"IN", "NOT IN", "BETWEEN", "IS", and "IS NOT", .

<h3>3.1 Sort Order</h3>

<p>The results of a comparison depend on the storage classes of the
operands, according to the following rules:</p>
<ul>
  <li><p>A value with storage class NULL is considered less than any
  other value (including another value with storage class NULL).</p>

  <li><p>An INTEGER or REAL value is less than any TEXT or BLOB value.
  When an INTEGER or REAL is compared to another INTEGER or REAL, a
  numerical comparison is performed.</p>

  <li><p>A TEXT value is less than a BLOB value.  When two TEXT values
  are compared an appropriate collating sequence is used to determine 
  the result.  </p>

  <li><p>When two BLOB values are compared, the result is
  determined using memcmp().</p>
</ul>

<a name="expraff"></a>

<h3>3.2 Affinity Of Comparison Operands</h3>

<p>SQLite may attempt to convert values between the storage classes
INTEGER, REAL, and/or TEXT before performing a comparison.
Whether or not any conversions are attempted before the comparison takes
place depends on the affinity of the operands.
Operand affinity is determined by the following rules:

<ul>
  <li><p>An expression that is a simple reference to a column value
  has the same affinity as the column.
  Note that if X and Y.Z 
  are column names, then +X and +Y.Z are considered expressions for the
  purpose of determining affinity.</p>

  <li><p>An expression of the form "CAST(<i>expr</i> AS <i>type</i>)"
  has an affinity that is the same as a column with a declared
  type of "<i>type</i>".

  <li><p>Otherwise, an expression has NONE affinity.
</ul>

<a name="compaff"></a>

<h3>3.3 Type Conversions Prior To Comparison</h3>

<p>To "apply affinity" means to convert an operand to a particular storage
class if and only if the conversion is lossless and reversible.
Affinity is applied to operands of a comparison operator prior to
the comparison according to the following rules in the order shown:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>If one operand has INTEGER, REAL or NUMERIC affinity
and the other operand as TEXT or NONE affinity
then NUMERIC affinity is applied to other operand.

<li><p>If one operand has TEXT affinity and the other has NONE affinity,
then TEXT affinity is applied to the other operand.

<li><p>Otherwise, no affinity is applied and both operands are compared
as is.</p>
</ul>

<p>The expression "a BETWEEN b AND c" is treated as two separate
binary comparisons "a &gt;= b AND a &lt;= c", even if that means
different affinities are applied to 'a' in each of the comparisons.
Datatype conversions in comparisons of the
form "x IN (SELECT y ...)" are handled is if
the comparison were really "x=y".
The expression "a IN (x, y, z, ...)" is equivalent to "a = +x OR
a = +y OR a = +z OR ...".  
In other words, the values to the right of the IN operator (the "x", "y",
and "z" values in this example) are considered to have no affinity, 
even if they happen to be column values or CAST expressions.  
</p>

<h3>3.4 Comparison Example</h3>

<blockquote>
<pre>
CREATE TABLE t1(
    a TEXT,      -- text affinity
    b NUMERIC,   -- numeric affinity
    c BLOB,      -- no affinity
    d            -- no affinity
);

-- Values will be stored as TEXT, INTEGER, TEXT, and INTEGER respectively
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES('500', '500', '500', 500);
SELECT typeof(a), typeof(b), typeof(c), typeof(d) FROM t1;
text|integer|text|integer

-- Because column "a" has text affinity, numeric values on the
-- right-hand side of the comparisons are converted to text before
-- the comparison occurs.
SELECT a &lt; 40,   a &lt; 60,   a &lt; 600 FROM t1;
0|1|1

-- Text affinity is applied to the right-hand operands but since
-- they are already TEXT this is a no-op; no conversions occur.
SELECT a &lt; '40', a &lt; '60', a &lt; '600' FROM t1;
0|1|1

-- Column "b" has numeric affinity and so numeric affinity is applied
-- to the operands on the right.  Since the operands are already numeric,
-- the application of affinity is a no-op; no conversions occur.  All
-- values are compared numerically.
SELECT b &lt; 40,   b &lt; 60,   b &lt; 600 FROM t1;
0|0|1

-- Numeric affinity is applied to operands on the right, converting them
-- from text to integers.  Then a numeric comparison occurs.
SELECT b &lt; '40', b &lt; '60', b &lt; '600' FROM t1;
0|0|1

-- No affinity conversions occur.  Right-hand side values all have
-- storage class INTEGER which are always less than the TEXT values
-- on the left.
SELECT c &lt; 40,   c &lt; 60,   c &lt; 600 FROM t1;
0|0|0

-- No affinity conversions occur.  Values are compared as TEXT.
SELECT c &lt; '40', c &lt; '60', c &lt; '600' FROM t1;
0|1|1

-- No affinity conversions occur.  Right-hand side values all have
-- storage class INTEGER which compare numerically with the INTEGER
-- values on the left.
SELECT d &lt; 40,   d &lt; 60,   d &lt; 600 FROM t1;
0|0|1

-- No affinity conversions occur.  INTEGER values on the left are
-- always less than TEXT values on the right.
SELECT d &lt; '40', d &lt; '60', d &lt; '600' FROM t1;
1|1|1
</pre>
</blockquote>

<p>All of the result in the example are the same if the comparisons are
commuted - if expressions of the form "a&lt;40" are rewritten
as "40&gt;a".

<h2>4.0 Operators</h2>

<p>All mathematical operators (+, -, *, /, %, &lt;&lt;, &gt;&gt;,
&amp;, and |)
cast both operands to the NUMERIC storage class prior to being carried out.
The cast is carried through even if it is lossy and irreversible.
A NULL operand on a mathematical operator yields a NULL result.
An operand on a mathematical operator that does not look in any way
numeric and is not NULL is converted to 0 or 0.0.
</p>

<h2>5.0 Sorting, Grouping and Compound SELECTs</h2>

<p>When query results are sorted by an ORDER BY clause, values with storage
class NULL come first, followed by INTEGER and REAL values
interspersed in numeric order, followed by TEXT values in collating
sequence order, and finally BLOB values in memcmp() order.  No storage
class conversions occur before the sort.</p>

<p>When grouping values with the GROUP BY clause values with
different storage classes are considered distinct, except for INTEGER
and REAL values which are considered equal if they are numerically
equal. No affinities are applied to any values as the result of a
GROUP by clause.</p>

<p>The compound SELECT operators UNION,
INTERSECT and EXCEPT perform implicit comparisons between values.
No affinity is applied to comparison operands for the implicit
comparisons associated with UNION, INTERSECT, or EXCEPT - the values
are compared as is.</p>

<a name="collation"></a>

<h2>6.0 Collating Sequences</h2>

<p>When SQLite compares two strings, it uses a collating sequence or
collating function (two words for the same thing) to determine which
string is greater or if the two strings are equal.
SQLite has three built-in collating functions:  BINARY, NOCASE, and 
RTRIM.</p>

<ul>
<li><b>BINARY</b> - Compares string data using memcmp(), regardless
                   of text encoding.</li>
<li><b>NOCASE</b> - The same as binary, except the 26 upper case
     characters of ASCII are folded to their lower case equivalents before
     the comparison is performed.  Note that only ASCII characters
     are case folded.  SQLite does not attempt to do full
     UTF case folding due to the size of the tables required.</li>

<li><b>RTRIM</b> - The same as binary, except that trailing space
     characters are ignored.</li>
</ul>

<p>An application can register additional collating functions using
the <a href="c3ref/create_collation.html">sqlite3_create_collation()</a> interface.</p>

<h3>6.1 Assigning Collating Sequences from SQL</h3>

<p>
Every column of every
table has an associated collating function.  If no collating function
is explicitly defined, then the collating function defaults to BINARY.
The COLLATE clause of the <a href="lang_createtable.html#tablecoldef">column definition</a> is used
to define alternative collating functions for a column.
</p>  

<p>
The rules for determining which collating function to use for a
binary comparison operator (=, &lt;, &gt;, &lt;=, &gt;=, !=, IS, and
IS NOT) are as follows and in the order shown:

<ol>
<li><p>If either operand has an explicit collating function assignment
using the postfix <a href="lang_expr.html#collateop">COLLATE operator</a>, then the explicit collating function
is used for comparison, with precedence to the collating function of the
left operand.</p></li>

<li><p>If either operand is a column, then the collating function of
that column is used with precedence to the left operand.
For the purposes of the previous sentence, a column name
preceded by one or more unary "+" operators is still considered a column name.
</p></li>

<li><p>Otherwise, the BINARY collating function is used for comparison.
</p></li>
</ol>

<p>
An operand of a comparison is considered to have an explicit
collating function assignment (rule 1 above) 
if any subexpression of the operand uses
the postfix <a href="lang_expr.html#collateop">COLLATE operator</a>.  Thus, if a <a href="lang_expr.html#collateop">COLLATE operator</a> is used
anywhere in a comparision expression, the collating function defined
by that operator is used for string comparison regardless of what 
table columns might be a part of that expression.  If two or more
<a href="lang_expr.html#collateop">COLLATE operator</a> subexpressions appear anywhere in a comparison, the 
left most explicit collating function is used regardless of how deeply the
COLLATE operators are nested in the expression and regardless of
how the expression is parenthesized.
</p>

<p>
The expression "x BETWEEN y and z" is logically
equivalent to two comparisons "x &gt;= y AND x &lt;= z" and works with
respect to collating functions as if it were two separate comparisons.
The expression "x IN (SELECT y ...)" is handled in the same way as the
expression "x = y" for the purposes of determining the collating sequence.
The collating sequence used for expressions of the form 
"x IN (y, z, ...)" is the collating sequence of x.
</p>  

<p>
Terms of the ORDER BY clause that is part of a <a href="lang_select.html">SELECT</a>
statement may be assigned a collating sequence using the 
<a href="lang_expr.html#collateop">COLLATE operator</a>, in which case the specified collating function is
used for sorting.
Otherwise, if the expression sorted by an ORDER BY clause is
a column, then the collating sequence of the column is used to
determine sort order. If the expression is not a column and has no
COLLATE clause, then the BINARY collating sequence is used.
</p>  

<h3>6.2 Collation Sequence Examples</h3>
<p>
The examples below identify the collating sequences that would be used to
determine the results of text comparisons that may be performed by various
SQL statements. Note that a text comparison may not be required, and no
collating sequence used, in the case of numeric, blob or NULL values.
</p>
<blockquote>
<pre>
CREATE TABLE t1(
    x INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
    a,                 /* collating sequence BINARY */
    b COLLATE BINARY,  /* collating sequence BINARY */
    c COLLATE RTRIM,   /* collating sequence RTRIM  */
    d COLLATE NOCASE   /* collating sequence NOCASE */
);
                   /* x   a     b     c       d */
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES(1,'abc','abc', 'abc  ','abc');
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES(2,'abc','abc', 'abc',  'ABC');
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES(3,'abc','abc', 'abc ', 'Abc');
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES(4,'abc','abc ','ABC',  'abc');
 
/* Text comparison a=b is performed using the BINARY collating sequence. */
SELECT x FROM t1 WHERE a = b ORDER BY x;
--result 1 2 3

/* Text comparison a=b is performed using the RTRIM collating sequence. */
SELECT x FROM t1 WHERE a = b COLLATE RTRIM ORDER BY x;
--result 1 2 3 4

/* Text comparison d=a is performed using the NOCASE collating sequence. */
SELECT x FROM t1 WHERE d = a ORDER BY x;
--result 1 2 3 4

/* Text comparison a=d is performed using the BINARY collating sequence. */
SELECT x FROM t1 WHERE a = d ORDER BY x;
--result 1 4

/* Text comparison 'abc'=c is performed using the RTRIM collating sequence. */
SELECT x FROM t1 WHERE 'abc' = c ORDER BY x;
--result 1 2 3

/* Text comparison c='abc' is performed using the RTRIM collating sequence. */
SELECT x FROM t1 WHERE c = 'abc' ORDER BY x;
--result 1 2 3

/* Grouping is performed using the NOCASE collating sequence (Values
** 'abc', 'ABC', and 'Abc' are placed in the same group). */
SELECT count(*) FROM t1 GROUP BY d ORDER BY 1;
--result 4

/* Grouping is performed using the BINARY collating sequence.  'abc' and
** 'ABC' and 'Abc' form different groups */
SELECT count(*) FROM t1 GROUP BY (d || '') ORDER BY 1;
--result 1 1 2

/* Sorting or column c is performed using the RTRIM collating sequence. */
SELECT x FROM t1 ORDER BY c, x;
--result 4 1 2 3

/* Sorting of (c||'') is performed using the BINARY collating sequence. */
SELECT x FROM t1 ORDER BY (c||''), x;
--result 4 2 3 1

/* Sorting of column c is performed using the NOCASE collating sequence. */
SELECT x FROM t1 ORDER BY c COLLATE NOCASE, x;
--result 2 4 3 1
</pre>
</blockquote>

